A problem with operating a plurality of processing units using the same application substantially simultaneously is a user is not able to use more than one master file or application at a time. Another problem is how a user may deal with an operating outage at a data source site because of a network outage at the data store site or for another reason. Such operating outages may cause users to be unable to access application functionality because of lack of data access. The data may not be available at the particular location needed but may be saved at another location. Because of cost, or an inability to employ proprietary solutions or for another reason, some prior art systems and methods have employed software-dependent or hardware-dependent approaches that provide a single master processing unit with one or more alternate processing units employed as backup processing units. Such an arrangement is not a true multi-master arrangement as is required for properly operating a plurality of processing units substantially simultaneously.
There is a need for a method and system for operating a plurality of processing units that provides high availability and a redundant data store or data store system with automatic failover and restore capabilities.